It was another NCAA Tournament field that was unveiled on Sunday and another field that Indiana basketball failed to be part of.
It is now the fifth straight season - four if you don't count last season due to COVID canceling the tournament - that the Hoosiers have watched the NCAA Tournament from home.
For 2021, it burns even more with the entire tournament taking place in Indiana, and even games taking place in Assembly Hall.
Indiana is such an historically rich program but that tradition has been slowly fading as IU has not been in a National Championship game since 2002 and you have to go back to 1993 for the only other time in the past 29 years that the program has made it past a Sweet 16.
"It is very frustrating not making the NCAA Tournament," IU sophomore guard Armaan Franklin said following the Big Ten Tournament loss to Rutgers. "But you have to keep building on what we're doing; trust each other, trust the coaches. Not dwell on the past and just look to the future."
While not dwelling on the past is sometimes easier said than done, with each year that passes, you continue to run into the fact that Indiana has missed the NCAA Tournament more times (11) than made it (9) in the past 20 years. And with each new recruiting class that comes in, less and less success continues to surround the program.
